In recent years, the domestic new energy vehicle industry has developed rapidly, becoming a new industry trend, especially with the emergence of new car manufacturing forces such as NIO and Xiaopeng, which have received more public attention.
On May 15 of this year, the Legal Department of Weilai announced that Weilai had filed a lawsuit against Gu Yubo, the owner of "Xiaoniushuiche" account of Tiktok, which was officially filed by the court.
The behavior of enterprises and self media engaging in lawsuits is not common. As one of the well-known new forces in car manufacturing, NIO's approach has naturally attracted a lot of attention.
The first instance verdict in the case of Wei Lai v. "Little Cow Says Car"
On November 6, the Ministry of Justice of Weilai issued a statement saying that the court had recently ruled in the first instance that Gu Yubo, the holder of the Tiktok account "Xiaoniushuiche", infringed Weilai's right of reputation by deliberately distorting and fabricating facts, requiring him to publish an apology statement on the Tiktok account "Xiaoniushuiche" for 90 consecutive days, and compensate Weilai for economic losses and other losses totaling more than 600000 yuan within 10 days after the judgment came into effect.
The judgment found that: (1) the case involving eleven infringing videos released by the infringer Gu Yubo on the Tiktok account "Xiaoniushuiche" involved malicious infringement of Weilai's reputation right and had caused damage; (2) The video involved in the case used language with the nature of personal attacks and personal insults, which violated public order, good customs, and socialist core values, and had the suspicion of vilifying, objectifying, insulting, and derogatory towards women; (3) Based on the playback data of the video involved in the case, as well as the evidence of damage caused to NIO by Gu Yubo's release of infringing videos, it is comprehensively determined that Gu Yubo will compensate NIO for a total of over 600000 yuan in economic losses.
The NIO Legal Department stated that "we have obtained some illegal evidence related to unhealthy self media, and we will release the progress of other criminal and civil infringement cases to users and society in the near future." The compensation obtained from this rights protection will be donated to support public welfare and charitable undertakings such as education and elderly care.
The dispute between NIO and Gu Yubo, the owner of "Xiaoniu Shuochi", began in April this year.
On May 15 of this year, the Ministry of Justice of Weilai announced that, since April 6, 2023, Gu Yubo has used his registered Tiktok account "Xiaoniu Shuo Che" to publish more than ten short videos in a row, using insulting, vulgar, vulgar and defamatory words, fabricating facts, distorting and interpreting information about Weilai and Weilai users, and slandering, abusing and attacking the new energy automobile industry, Weilai and Weilai users, Even repeatedly using insulting descriptions to defame the NIO brand and products, and using insulting language to maliciously personal attack NIO users, seriously infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of NIO and NIO users.
Weilai believes that the production, dissemination, and forwarding of relevant videos are suspected of serious violations of relevant criminal and civil laws and regulations. Regarding the civil liability of Gu Yubo's infringement, NIO has officially filed a lawsuit against him, demanding that he delete the relevant videos, publicly apologize, and compensate 5 million RMB (tentative). The case was officially filed by the court on May 15th.
According to a report on CCTV on May 17th, "Xiaoniu Shuochi" is an automotive self media account that has gained over 2 million followers in a short period of time through intensive opinion output on car brands, models, and even users such as Xiaopeng, Ideal, NIO, as well as Geely, BYD, and BAIC Blue Valley.
After being sued, the account has deleted some related content, but these contents have been widely fermented on the platform and have spread through a fan base of over 2 million.
At present, "Maverick Says Che" has 3.275 million fans in Tiktok.
It is worth noting that the conflict between NIO and Gu Yubo, the owner of the "Xiaoniu Shuochi", is not limited to the infringement of reputation rights
According to the Red Star News, on August 4, Gu Yubo released a video in Tiktok via his account "Xiaoniu Shuo Che", saying that he had taken Weilai to court, on the grounds that he had purchased the new Weilai ES6 with full payment in July, but Weilai refused to deliver it.
NIO stated that in view of Gu Yubo's verbal abuse, slander, and attacks on NIO and its users, NIO has notified the termination of the car purchase agreement, refused to sell NIO branded vehicles to them, and refunded the full amount and paid double the vehicle deposit involved in the agreement on the day of termination.
According to Red Star News in August, according to the video content of "The Mavericks Speak of Cars", Gu Yubo placed a deposit on July 4th, paid the full amount on July 12th, and issued an invoice on July 14th. The sales notification is that the car will be picked up on July 14th. But when he went to pick up the car, the delivery center asked him to come again the next day on the grounds that the car was not charged and still dirty. When he went again the next day, the staff informed him that he had received a notification from NIO headquarters and decided not to accept your delivery. Gu Yubo found the actual vehicle with the corresponding frame number at the delivery center.
At present, Gu Yubo has filed a lawsuit against Wei Lai, and the People's Court of Tongshan District, Xuzhou, Jiangsu has accepted it. He requested NIO to deliver the vehicles in accordance with the Car Purchase Agreement; Compensation of 1 million yuan; Issue an apology statement on the "Weilai" Tiktok Blue V authentication account, and set the top publicly for no less than 10 days.
Supreme Law: Protecting Private Enterprises and Entrepreneurs in accordance with the Law
In May of this year, the official Weibo account of NIO's Ministry of Justice was officially opened, mainly aimed at defending the rights of NIO's malicious attacks and other comments on the internet. Since its establishment, the account has disclosed the progress of protecting the rights of multiple online infringing accounts.
Coincidentally, car companies such as Tesla, BYD, Ideal Motors, and Xiaopeng Motors have all established legal departments to safeguard various public opinions on the internet.
In March of this year, the Joint Conference of Chief Brand Officers (CB20) of Chinese Automotive Enterprises under the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) and its member units unanimously decided to launch a joint initiative to resist the online water army in the automotive industry.
The member units participating in this joint initiative include China FAW, Dongfeng Group, Changan Automobile, SAIC Group, BAIC Group, GAC Group, Chery Automobile, Jiangqi Group, Great Wall Motors, Geely Automobile, BYD, NIO, Xiaopeng Automobile, and Ideal Automobile, totaling 14 automobile companies.
In the joint initiative, it is clear that we should resist the online water army from four aspects, including not participating in, not hiring the online water army to make any negative comments, pour water, and maliciously smear; Jointly resist enterprises that hire online water armies, and jointly resist service agents who maliciously irrigate or smear; Jointly resist all unfair competition behaviors that fabricate false information, attack and provoke peer relationships; We call on car users to express their opinions rationally in the online space, not to be misled by bad information, and not to be coerced by the navy.
On October 10th, the Supreme People's Court issued the "Guiding Opinions on Optimizing the Legal Environment of Private Economy and Promoting the Development and Growth of Private Economy" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions"), consisting of 27 articles in six aspects.
In terms of protecting the property rights of private enterprises and entrepreneurs in accordance with the law, the Guiding Opinions propose to strengthen the protection of the property rights of private enterprises and entrepreneurs. Recognize property ownership in accordance with the law, and strengthen the protection of the legitimate property rights and interests of private economic entities, such as property rights, creditor's rights, equity, and intellectual property.
The Guiding Opinions also propose to formulate judicial interpretations to increase the punishment of corrupt behavior and the recovery of stolen goods by private enterprise staff, improve the normalized mechanism for correcting cases of injustice and error, and protect the right of private economic entities to apply for national compensation in accordance with the law. Strictly distinguish between economic disputes and illegal crimes, and strictly regulate the legal procedures for adopting criminal coercive measures.
The Guiding Opinions particularly emphasize the protection of the personal rights of private enterprises and their families, fully utilize the function of the prohibition system for infringement of personal rights, and promptly stop illegal acts that infringe on personal rights. For extreme speech behaviors that intentionally mislead the public and intentionally attract attention, and use communication channels such as the Internet, self media, and publications to defame, derogate, and vilify private enterprises and entrepreneurs, strict crackdowns should be imposed to effectively create a social public opinion environment conducive to the development of private economy.